On Thursday, President Donald Trump saved California’s economy.
Someone forgot to tell Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally initiated the process of rescinding the 2009 “endangerment finding” — the Obama-era determination that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were threat to public health and welfare.
That single bureaucratic declaration became the legal foundation for nearly every major federal climate regulation imposed over the past decade and a half.
Now the administration is moving to dismantle it.
Environmental groups are already preparing lawsuits.
But make no mistake: This is the opening shot in the most significant climate rollback in modern history.
Trump called the finding “a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers,” predicting they would save “trillions of dollars” as a result of Thursday’s action.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin didn’t hedge.
He called it the largest deregulatory action in American history and framed it as a dagger to the heart of what he described as the “climate-change religion.”
The EPA released an economic report supporting its findings, which touts, among other savings, a $2,400 reduction in individual vehicle costs per year.
This, of course, has sent climate change fanatics into hysterics — starting with former President Obama himself, who took to Elon Musk’s X to say, “…we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.”
Obama’s response also reminded us: The original endangerment rule was Obama’s autocratic decree.
Congress never passed a sweeping climate law. One dubious administrative interpretation of the Clean Air Act — a statute written to combat smog — became Obama’s pretext for an economy-wide carbon regime.
That’s governance by decree.
From that interpretation flowed vehicle mandates, power-plant rules, methane restrictions, and an expanding web of compliance regimes affecting how Americans drive, heat their homes, and power their businesses.
Rescinding the endangerment finding does not instantly erase every climate regulation on the books. Individual rules must be revised or repealed through separate processes.
But all of the federal regulations on climate depend on that first endangerment finding.
Without that finding, the EPA has no authority to regulate greenhouse gases — unless Congress explicitly authorizes it in a new law.
That’s the point.
A policy of that magnitude should have been debated and enacted by elected lawmakers — not imposed through regulatory interpretation.
And such far-reaching climate rules would never pass Congress, even if opponents would be named “deniers” or “anti-science.”
That’s because American families know what climate restrictions mean in real terms.
Higher gas prices. Higher electricity bills. More expensive vehicles. More expensive housing.
The administration argues that unwinding rules built on the endangerment finding could eliminate trillions in projected regulatory costs over time. Critics dispute those projections.
What is not disputed is this: The regulatory architecture built around carbon has been vast. And costly.
If Washington built the model, California weaponized it.
Sacramento didn’t merely follow federal climate policy. It escalated it.
The so-called Global Warming Solutions Act launched cap-and-trade — now rebranded as “cap-and-invest” — requiring businesses to purchase carbon allowances to operate.
Those costs don’t disappear. They show up at the pump. On utility bills. In construction costs. In grocery prices.
Since its inception, California’s carbon regime has pulled more than $30 billion out of the productive economy and placed it in the hands of politicians — a massive transfer of wealth dressed up as environmental necessity.
Billions have been steered to high-speed rail — still no tracks or trains, and wildly over budget.
Layered on top are appliance bans, building mandates, reporting regimes, and land-use micromanagement, all justified as a matter of climate urgency.
California could eliminate every ton of carbon tomorrow, and global temperatures would not change measurably.
That reality rarely appears in speeches.
In fact, on Friday, Newsom attacked the EPA’s ending of the endangerment finding while again traveling abroad this week, this time to speak at the Munich Security Conference. (Wasn’t he just in Davos?)
“Donald Trump is doubling down on stupid,” said Newsom as he criticized President Trump, his favorite thing to do.
But Newsom is on the losing end of a real-life experiment: Red states bet on production, while blue states bet on regulation.
The results are visible in affordability trends and domestic migration patterns across the country.
Americans support clean air and clean water. They also support paying their bills.
Affordability is not a side issue. It is the issue.
If the EPA succeeds, it won’t just roll back a regulatory finding.
It will roll back costs.
And that is something working families will actually feel. Here in California, and across the nation.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
